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Carolyn Ganney - Organic Mushroom Company

“I’ve been growing them since I was two and I was brought up around mushrooms. We started the conversion to organic about 10 years ago. It’s taken seven years to fully convert to 100 percent organic,” she says.

The mushroom beds are tiered on top of each other inside tunnels on four different farms and the Organic Mushroom Company grows a staggering 60,000kg of organic mushrooms every week.

“Our first challenge was finding organic wheatstraw to make the compost. We have to source it from all over the UK to get enough of it – we use 5,000 tons a year.

“Once you’ve got your compost going you can’t apply any chemicals in the water that you use. We have to be incredibly hygienic and we don’t allow the crop to grow as long as a conventional mushroom farmer would, so we get a slightly lower yield.”

Every mushroom starts life as a button mushroom, then becomes a closed cup and then, if allowed to grow long enough, a big flat breakfast mushroom. White and brown are different species and both come in all different sizes.

Anyone with a Riverford vegbox receives Carolyn’s mushrooms as the company supplies all the Riverford farms. No-one is happier about that than Carolyn.

"I absolutely love mushrooms, and I think Riverford are fantastic – they are one of our favourite customers. I have a box every week and I just enjoy everything they stand for."